ABC's Martha Raddatz: Gibson Calls Her Gritty, But Some Nights She Wants To Be "An Honorary Man"

Washington Post:

ABC's Martha Raddatz was taping a stand-up report in Islamabad last week when a Pakistani police officer grabbed the arm of a top lawyer organizing anti-government protests and began leading him away.

When Raddatz walked over to investigate, the officer dropped the man's arm and police insisted that he was not being detained.

Raddatz has a knack for showing up at the right moment. Although she is a White House correspondent, she has also made 14 trips to Iraq, the last of which coincided with a secret visit by President Bush. Last week Raddatz was making a stop in Pakistan on the way to Afghanistan with a top U.S. military official, but decided to stay behind when it became clear that President Pervez Musharraf was about to impose a state of emergency.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[balitwilight]

Martha Radditz is the Leni Riefenstahl to America's cheap idolatory of War and its beloved "Troops". "Our Troops" may slaughter, murder, manhandle and brutalise Iraqi civilians, but never fear - our Martha will be there to record breathless wooly-headed paeans to their manly virtues. She will deliver faux-hardnosed accounts on NPR Morning Edition, detailing with tear-jerking empathy how Our poor embattled "Troops" just have no choice but to open fire and massacre unarmed civilians in Sadr City. After all, those Muslim hordes just don't love their children the way We do. They recklessly pose them right in front of the .50 calibre rounds of Our philanthropic invading army. Dear God what's an occupying army to do - obey the Geneva Conventions? Ah, the Horrors Of War. By "Horrors", of course, NPR and the Washington Post mean not the inconvenient, uncounted piles of dismembered Iraqi men, women and children but the perils Our poor American Troops Face in Iraq, and at Walter Reed. One minute, it seems, A Troop is walking down Main St. Iowa just minding his own damn business - the next, swarthy skinned savages are hurling RPGs at him in Fallujah for no good reason at all.

Yes indeed, from her fiercely independent posture of being embedded halfway up General Petraeus's rear, Martha has consistently delivered the kind of hard-hitting journalism worthy of Leni Riefenstahl in Occupied France - had the Werhmacht and Waffen SS only possessed the media savvy of our Beloved Troops.

As the earlier reader's remark shows, Martha Radditz is on the money. She knows her audience. She reliably delivers the minute quantities of reality-distorting salve that the comatose consciences of Middle American listeners require to maintain their blissful teary-eyed cognitively dissonant affection for Our Troops and Our Goodness. Haditha. Abu Ghraib. Uncounted, nameless blood-drenched 5-year-old girls screaming at American checkpoints. Pyramids of singed corpses. Never mind. We are Good. Gott Mit Uns. Howie and Martha will make it all right.

[Jasonk]

The title of this link gives the impression that Charles Gibson is the one who labeled her an "honorary man". Read the article. He did not say it.

excerpt:

"Perhaps the most surreal moment came days earlier, when Raddatz went to a diplomatic dinner with Adm. William Fallon, head of the U.S. Central Command. Finding the women gathered on one side of the reception area and the men on the other, she moved away from the women to talk to decision-makers.

"You want to be an honorary man for the evening," Fallon told her. "

[Ginzaman]

What does being an "honorary guy" mean? Not only is that sexist, demeaning and stupid. But now is some network pr person going to spin this into yet ANOTHER pointless promo for this newscaset?

[raker]

We'd settle for honorary reporter. Tell us what's happening and tell us the truth, not the "truth" according to GE, Disney and Viacom. And definitely not what it feels like for you to be a reporter. If reporters weren't all embedded and sequestered and co-opted we might get a little real reporting.

[deedrdo]

shes a person doing her job...and doing it well. to characterize her in terms of gender is patronizing, paternalistic, insulting and, in this day and age with women doing every job a man can do, simply unbelievable.

calling her an honorary man is an insult to her intelligence.

[KindAndThoughtful]

She is not only gritty, but a class act.

http://verybestwebsites.blogspot.com/

[Bulbul]

While the Judges and the Juries have decided all of the half an hour news are slowly becoming obsolete, it is not necessarily the anchors, Martha Raddatz`s are the reason the network news will always survive.
On the same note while some morderators are playing gotcha game during debates, which is highly embarressing to watch, networks should find people like Her to conduct those !